Week Six: Snippet (Alice)

Snippet

Page 316

This page describes the process of Marjane and Reza's wedding. Although it should be a joyous event, Marjane does not look happy at all, except for the first panel. When she and Reza got crumbs of sugar loaves sprinkled on their heads to bring joy and prosperity, Marjane is pouting. Also, she is looking away from Reza in the fourth panel, which suggests that she is doubting if the marriage will indeed start out on a sweet note like the ritual bids them. Furthermore, as Marjane is following her mother and answering various people's questions, she puts on a mask (psst! a motif!), a fake smile on her lips. Finally, the last panel on this page--showing her walking down a dark corridor--seems to pmply that her marriage will turn out to be a dark passage, and a lonely one, too. This turns out to be true in the end of the book, because Marjane accuses Reza of being a hermit: "you never want to go out! If I have to go everywhere alone, what's the point of living together?" (Satrapi, 319) What's more, they never look at each other during the their wedding! This observation led me to believe that this entire page is full of carefully-disguised forshadowing details.